Joined Together
by Arthur88
Summary: Set post-DA2. Oneshot (for now). Slightly AU. With her life at Kirkwall in ruins and her companions either dead or scattered to the four winds, Valerie Hawke seeks out a new beginning with the one person who won't turn her away...


_Ok, this is just something I've wanted to get out of my head for ages; the idea came to me after completing both Legacy and Dragon Age II in the same afternoon and the thought of one potential fate for the Champion came to me out of it, helped along by my liking for how warrior Hawke looks in the Regalia of Weisshaupt armour. Plus, I've wanted to write something about one of my Hawkes for a long time; I haven't forgotten about Arthur Cousland, but my muse for that's a bit dry at the moment. Hopefully that'll change soon._

_This is just a drabble I want to get out of my head; I'm not writing for reviews (though they would be welcome), merely for fun and to satisfy my muse and to try something different. Just a one shot for now, but if there's enough liking for it, I might be persuaded to build on it. Hope you enjoy._

* * *

The decision of where to go from Kirkwall was somewhat easy for Valerie Hawke. She had no desire to linger in the fetid pit of madness and chaos Kirkwall had become, had no wish to stay and let this foul, decadent, corrupt viper's nest of a city destroy any more of her life than it had over the past seven years. Not that there was anything left for her there anyway.

Anders, the man who had taken both her heart and her life, was dead by her hand. He had abused and betrayed her trust so that he could commit mass murder, and that was something she could not forgive. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the moment as he fell to his knees and bowed his head before her, unflinching and accepting of the punishment she would mete out for his betrayal, an instant before she brought her greatsword down on his neck.

The death had been true justice, not what that accursed _**demon **_in his head, whispering its poison in his ears claimed to be, justice for those who'd died in the Chantry and all who would die in the massacre Meredith instigated, so many _murdered_ by a man who claimed to heal but caused only death, who claimed to preach freedom, equality and liberation but had brought only chaos, suffering and misery, all to satisfy his arrogance, his hypocrisy, his outrageous presumption that he and he alone knew what it was to suffer, that he alone knew what was best for all. Part of her had wanted to forgive him, to tell him it would be alright, but her sense of honour was stronger than her heart; she'd killed men and women-Thrask, Keran, Grace- for far less than what Anders had done. As Anders himself had said, there was no compromise.

Fenris and Sebastian were also dead by her hand, both bleeding their last on the blade of her sword and dying on the cold cobbles of the Gallows, the elf unable to relinquish his hatred for the mages, even to help the woman who had given him his freedom, while the high and mighty prince had finally grown a spine, only to use it to refuse to side 'with maleficarum trying to escape punishment for their crimes', albeit crimes that only existed in his head, considering none of those he and his new Chantry mistress intended to murder had had any part in his precious Elthina's death. Their deaths were imprinted in her nightmares with Anders'; the look of astonishment on Sebastian's fine boned features as his head spun through the air when her sword cleaved it off his shoulders, along with the pain, anger and hurt that made Fenris's dark green eyes light up for the last time as her sword's blade lanced through his heart and emerged between his shoulders.

Valerie hated the pair of them for turning their backs on her, Meredith for putting them in her path in the hope it would stop her, and herself for being unable to find any way to stop them other than bloodshed. Had Sebastian done as she insisted all along and gone back to Starkhaven, instead of trying to pass off his indecisiveness as faith, he might still be alive with a city recovering and growing prosperous under his rule and perhaps a wife carrying his child, instead of dying on the cold stone of a Tevinter fortress. As for Fenris, for all his talk of wanting freedom and starting anew, he remained shackled to his hatred and paranoia bordering on fanaticism for the magic that had altered his life, despite Valerie's constant urgings to let it go and try to move forward. Perhaps now, Fenris had found freedom from that bondage in the peace of the grave.

Isabela had offered her a place on her new ship, but Valerie had turned her down; the mere thought of a life at sea made her feel sick, plus she knew she would make a terrible seaman. The pirate had left Kirkwall the next day, taking Merrill with her, Isabela refusing to take no for an answer and brushing aside the elf's feeble protests with a full kiss. The warrior woman had long suspected Isabela and the Dalish girl had been more than friends; that their close friendship had become something else, the pirate's constant urge to protect the little elf having blossomed into more than just a sororal affection, that the pirate would find someone she cared about enough to settle down from her life of wild. Watching her new ship, the '_Queen Isabela's Revenge' _catch the wind in its sails and depart Kirkwall harbour, returning Isabela to the sea after seven years ashore, Valerie wished the Rivaini pirate and her elven paramour good fortune wherever they went; after the varying degrees of hell she and her companions had suffered for seven years in this fetid city, _someone_ deserved some happiness, at least.

Aveline and Varric had offered her places to stay, either with the City Guard, the Carta or the Coterie, but Valerie had turned them down flat. She knew full well she'd make a terrible guardsman or hired thug-she'd never been too good at taking orders or bowing to authority to be a cog in those organisations. In any case, rumours spoke of a vast templar army departing Orlais soon to restore order to Kirkwall, and she wanted to be gone long before they arrived. The Guard Captain would have enough on her plate dealing with that without trying to shield the one the templars would likely hold responsible for giving the mages the nerve to dare defy the stasus quo.

The estate was easy to give up; it had been Mother and Bethany who'd wanted that, but for Valerie, it had never felt like home, even less after Mother's death, feeling more like a place to hide as Kirkwall descended into chaos. She'd invited Uncle Gamlen and Cousin Charade to the manor and abruptly handed over to her cousin the key and the deed to the estate, making Charade the new Lady Amell. When her uncle protested, Valerie had pointed out that the last time he'd been left in charge, he'd swiftly drunk and gambled away the family fortune and Gamlen grudgingly conceded the point. She'd also given Orana, the elf maid who'd served the Amell estate for more than six years, the offer of freedom, but the elf was still too afraid and wary of life outside a routine of work and service, so Valerie had consented to the elf's desire to stay at the estate, explaining that Charade would be responsible for looking after her and that the arrangements for her to stay as a paid servant of the Amell estate would continue for as long as the elf wished.

Her last hour in Kirkwall, waiting for the tide to turn and the ship Varric had used his contacts to purchase a berth for Valerie aboard, to take her away from the Free Marches to set sail, was spent in the crypt below the manor, where the members of the Amell family down the ages had been interred.

"Goodbye, Mother" Valerie whispered as she placed the hawk-head helmet on the sarcophagus within which Leandra Amell-Hawke had been laid to rest. She was clad in a different set of armour- heavy plate armour over chainmail worn under a chequered blue and white tabard, stamped on the breastplate with the sigil of a rampant griffon, a full helm crested with silver wings at its temples resting at her feet. The ornate suit of plate armour she'd been given to commemorate her naming as Champion-which she had always hated, Valerie had always seen it as making her to be a symbol of something she most certainly wasn't; a defender of people, yet could defend no one she cared about, protector of a city she would happily destroy in the blink of an eye-would stand out a mile, and she didn't want to leave an obvious trail for the hunters the Chantry would undoubtedly send after her to follow, whereas a Grey Warden was far less likely to attract attention.

"Give Father and Carver my love. Me and Bethany will be along before you know it, and we'll be together again soon" Valerie promised as she left the Amell mausoleum for the last time.

#############

With her helm on, its visor down, no one thought to question her as the ship sailed back across the Waking Sea, a reverse of the crossing she'd made seven years before. Then, she had sailed in the company of family and friends. Now, she was alone, with only her inner demons for company. The fact that none of the passengers aboard the vessel- a three mast carrying refugees from the battle back to the relative safety of Ferelden- paid her the slightest bit of attention, for which she was glad. She had no desire for someone to slip word to the templars where she'd gone before she was safely ensconced in her intended destination, a place where they could not touch her.

Three and a half weeks later, the passage having been hampered by becalmed seas, she saw it for the first time in more than seven years; Ferelden, her homeland, where she'd grown up and had yet abandoned without a second thought when the archdemon had reared its ugly head and the Fifth Blight had been unleashed upon the land, Unbidden, something Anders had said to her not long after her arrival in Kirkwall came to mind;

'_Half of Ferelden's trapped in this stinking pit. They'd have done better to stay at home and take their chances fighting the darkspawn'_.

'_Should we have?'_ Valerie couldn't help but wonder. _'If we'd stayed here and tried to ride out the Blight, would it have been better? Would Mother still be alive? Carver and Wesley? If I had never come to Kirkwall, would the Arishok and his armies have put Meredith, Orsino, Elthina and all the others who brought this misery down on me to the sword? Would all the evil I saw in those seven years been undone?'_

She sighed bitterly. It made no matter; they had run from the Blight instead of trying to fight it, Mother and Carver and so many others had died and the world she'd tried so hard to build over the past seven years had come crashing down around her ears. All that was left now to her was to try and scrape together some sort of life in a world that had gone mad.

Two hours later, the ship dropped anchor and deposited her at Amaranthine, where selling a pair of diamond earrings, a gift from a wealthy merchant hoping to gain the Champion's favour, bought her a horse and enough supplies to reach her destination. She rode non stop, through day and night, under pouring rain and the crackle of thunder, disregarding the stabs of hunger and thirst and wounds from the final battle at the Gallows that despite her best efforts to bind and keep them clean continued to pain her; the deep cut Meredith had carved in her shoulder, three long scars raked across the flesh of her neck left by the taloned gauntlets Fenris wore, ones that might have torn out her throat had she not managed to sever his sword arm at the elbow, two circular, puckered wounds where Sebastian's arrows had found homes in flesh, bruises and abrasions on her ribs left by the meaty fists of the hulking monstrosity Orsino had become and other wounds from the weapons of countless Templars, abominations, demons and other of the foes that had rampaged through the Gallows in that last battle, but she kept on, pushing herself as she always had to the very limits of her endurance. She'd done the same for so many others-friends, loved ones and even people she despised; she could hardly do anything less for herself.

Finally, after hours of riding, it came into view, distinctive even through the heavy rain that continued to pelt down on her; the great castle that had once been the seat of House Howe until their last lord's treachery during the Blight had cost his family everything and their castle and lands were given to more deserving lords. Within half an hour, she had reached the castle; Valerie urged her horse through the Vigil's gates, where high above her stood a ten foot tall statue of white marble of a dwarf woman in plate armour, holding a sword aloft and crushing an ogre's skull beneath her boot. Valerie recognised her; the late Hero of Ferelden, Bronagh Aeducan, supposedly a princess of Orzammar who had lost everything to the machinations of others, and had yet managed to regain her life, to give it meaning again and restore honour shattered and broken into pieces by the ambition and vanity of others.

'_And if one noblewoman can find meaning and honour, can rebuild something worthwhile from a life shattered into nothing in this, why not another?'_

That was the last thing to go through her mind before a lance of pain tore through her form from a deep wound on her shoulder, a souvenir of Kirkwall from Meredith's greatsword, one that had plagued her ever since the Knight Commander had dealt her final blow before Meredith's cursed blade had turned on her, despite having the wound stitched up and repeatedly healed by half a dozen people, flared up with an explosive fury that spread down her entire sword arm. Valerie toppled insensate from the saddle, barely hearing the voices talking over her, coming closer as their speakers rushed to her aid.

"Commander Hawke, a Warden just collapsed in the courtyard!" she heard a man's voice say to her left, as she felt several strong pairs of hands lift her up, carrying her away from the hard ground and towards what looked like the entrance of the castle.

"Who are they, Rufus?" a voice that she would recognise anywhere snapped in answer. "I don't know" the first voice replied deferentially. "Helm's still on...and Maker's breath, what is that smell?! Rotted flesh and lyrium, or I'm a nug's uncle" the speaker cursed, and Valerie vaguely felt hands pick her up, felt her weary frame lift her from the ground and begin to carry her away from the rain and wet earth.

Valerie felt hands on her helm, then a burst of light briefly blinded her as the visor was lifted and the Champion found herself staring into a face she'd know anywhere. Dark hair framed pale-skinned, high-cheekboned features so similar to her own, set in an expression of shock and worry, wide eyes the colour of honey, just like those of their father...

"Val! Andraste's Blood, what are you doing here?"

Valerie merely smiled at the sight of Bethany, at the knowledge that she'd done it, had reached safety. That was the last thing to go through her mind before the darkness creeping in from the corners of her eyes enveloped her.

#############

It was four days before Valerie was strong enough to rise from her sickbed; Bethany would later tell her that it had taken them that long to remove a splinter of metal, a twisted, poisonous shard of mingled lyrium, silverite and lead, from the wound that was steadily sinking deeper into flesh. Bethany also added that they were lucky to remove the evil thing before it went any deeper and the only solution would have been to amputate the limb.

"What are you doing here?" Bethany asked as she entered Valerie's sick room to check the bandages, depositing a tray of food on the cabinet beside her sister's bed; simple fare to ensure that the body wasn't overwhelmed after so long without proper sustenance.

"There is nothing left for me there. I've come to join you, sister. Take me, Bethany. Make me a Warden"

For weeks, Bethany tried to delay doing so; she didn't truly believe that Valerie wanted the responsibility, not to mention the hardship of being a Warden-she merely wanted a way out of her current miserable existence and thought she could find it in the Order of the Grey. First, Commander Hawke was summoned to Denerim to speak on Warden business with King Alistair and his queen, and placated Valerie by assuring her elder sibling that preparations for a Joining could be done on her return. Then another delay arose-whispers of darkspawn war bands, vestiges of the Blight, looting and ransacking villages along the Ferelden coast, which kept Bethany and the rest of the Wardens away from Vigil's Keep for several days as they hunted down the tainted marauders, tracking the beasts back to their lair and putting the wretched creatures down before they could do any more harm or draw any more of their ilk to the area. Valerie offered her sword to help destroy the infestation, but Bethany refused; though she told her sister it was because she was still weak from her injuries and needed time to recover her strength before being able to return to battle, in truth Bethany refused her sister's aid against the darkspawn because privately she suspected that Valerie would do something stupid in the heat of battle, either trying to get herself killed in a bid to end her misery or get herself tainted in a bid to force her inclusion into the Grey Wardens. Bethany had hoped that the time spent away from the Vigil would allow Valerie to think better, to consider her options and perhaps choose another path, but when she and her fellow Wardens rode back into the castle, Bethany was stunned to see her older sister still there, Valerie sparring with some of the younger Wardens and the castle's men-at-arms, dispensing advice to some of the more eager recruits and looking quite clearly like she wasn't going anywhere soon.

Finally, Bethany could not delay the matter any longer; she would either have to forcibly send Valerie away or put her through the ritual. She'd seen several in her time, enough to know that not all who went through the Joining came out. _'There were three in my own; an Antivan templar built like an ox, a dwarf captain who'd survived countless battles in the Deep Roads, and me, a farm girl so weak from the taint they had to hold me up and pour that cursed blood down my throat...and yet only I survived. Can I let my sister, the one who looked after me for most of my life, go through with this, knowing what might happen?'. _In her mind's eye, Bethany could already see her sister on her hands and knees, coughing and choking, her bright blue eyes wide with pain and terror as the taint strangled the life from her...

That night, she went with a silver, half-filled chalice in her hands to Valerie's quarters. With a knock on her sister's door, Bethany entered the room, placed the goblet on the table beside the chamber's window and motioned for Valerie to take a seat in one of the two chairs by the table, while she sank down in the other, about to make one last ditch attempt to talk Valerie out of it, to at least try and ensure she understood the sacrifices and the hardships that the life of a Warden imposed upon those who chose it...

"Val, are you sure this is what you want? You remember what Anders said when Stroud took me? Assuming you survive the Joining, once you do this, there is no going back; no way to undo what's been done..." Bethany explained, only to fall silent as she saw the look in her sister's pale blue eyes and realised Valerie's decision had long been made.

"Where else can I go, Beth? The Templars want my head for what happened to Meredith, and the mages seem to expect me to take up the standard and lead them to freedom. Our so-called 'friends' have either scattered to the four winds or severed all ties with me to save their own hides. No one gives or has ever given a damn about what _I_ want…save for you. Mother, Father, Carver; they're all gone. We're the only family we have left, Beth, and for all that has happened, we've always been there for each other. I miss what we once had, Sister, back in Lothering, and while we can never get back what we once had, if I'm going to spend the rest of my life in exile, I want it to be in the company of someone I can trust to look out for me, who I know won't turn on me for their own ends".

Valerie buried her head in her hands and then looked up at Bethany after recovering her composure, the look of desperation in her eyes heart-rending.

"All of Thedas has either turned on me or turned its back on me. Not you too" Valerie pleaded in so soft, so desperate a voice that Bethany couldn't help but be stunned. Her big sister had always been so certain, so determined, so sure of everything; what had that last battle done to her? _'If I don't take her in, what will she do?'_ Bethany suddenly feared that her sister's despair and misery over losing everything might give her cause to harm herself if Bethany turned her away, that she might return to this room later to find Valerie lying lifeless with her wrists slit open. _'She protected me through some of the most dangerous moments in my life, was always there for me when I needed her. Can I really do any less for my big sis when she needs me?'_ Bethany thought, as well as considering that, given Valerie's skill with the blade, the Wardens could do a lot worse for recruiting. '_And there's few others I could want to watch my back in the thick of it...'_

With a resigned sigh, Bethany Hawke accepted the path that the Maker had placed her and her sister to walk to the end of their days.

"If this is truly what you want…then I will not deny you. And I can't deny it does sound tempting. The Hawke sisters together again…Maker willing, for good this time" Bethany smiled softly, placing her left hand encouragingly on her sister's gauntleted fist as her right hand pushed the silver chalice across the table to Valerie.

"Then join me. Join us, Sister. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant…"


End file.
